Charles Edwin `Pat' Shores

[ Age 80 ] He worked for the Army Corps of Engineers for 33 years.

Charles Edwin "Pat" Shores, who retired from the Baltimore District of the Army Corps of Engineers, where he had been chief of its engineering division, died of cancer Nov. 26 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The longtime Lutherville resident was 80.

Mr. Shores, the son of a United Railways streetcar conductor, was born in Baltimore on St. Patrick's Day, which inspired his lifelong nickname.

Raised on Portship Road in Dundalk, he was a 1944 graduate of Sparrows Point High School. After high school, he enlisted in the Navy and served for two years as a quartermaster aboard the attack transport USS Hampton.

After leaving the Navy in 1946, he enrolled at the University of Maryland, where he earned his bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1950.

He worked briefly as an engineer for the city of Baltimore and Bethlehem Steel Corp. before joining the Army corps in 1951 as a civil engineer in its structural and civil section.

Mr. Shores, who was an expert in flood control, worked on dam construction and major flood-control projects in the Mid-Atlantic region. He also was associated with military projects at the National Security Agency and Walter Reed Hospital.

He was promoted to assistant chief of the design branch and then assistant chief of the engineering division. In 1977, he was promoted to chief of the engineering division, a position he held until retiring in 1984.

"He believed in hard work and doing jobs the best way possible," said his son, Mark A. Shores of McLean, Va.

Mr. Shores, a modest man who played down his accomplishments, enjoyed applying his engineering background to helping family members and neighbors solve household problems.

"I can't recall anything he didn't fix - houses, cars, dental braces, whatever. Always caring for others, he was ready to serve," his son said. "The best illustration of this is when he retired because, as he said, he wanted to give the `younger people at the Corps a crack at his job.' "

An avid bicyclist, Mr. Shores only stopped riding in September because of his failing health.

"He'd ride all over. Even though we worried about him riding down York Road, he insisted on going to the library and grocery store on his bike," his son said.

He also enjoyed sailing.

Mr. Shores was a communicant of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Towson, where a Mass of Christian burial was offered Friday.

Also surviving are his wife of 54 years, the former Anna Mary Ercole; two daughters, Patricia A. Alligood of Raleigh, N.C., and Michele Sawicki of Phoenix, Baltimore County; a sister, Lucille Sienkiewicz of Rosedale; and eight grandchildren.